Remember Napster? If you were born after 2000, then you surely don’t. Nowadays, you can go to Amazon, purchase a song and download it in about 20 seconds, if it takes that long. At the turn of the last century (makes it sound like a very long time ago), you went to Napster, chose the song you wanted to illegally download, then watched and waited for 2.5, maybe 3 hours or more while your 3 minute song downloaded over your dial-up connection. It was painful. And what does have to do with this match? Well, thanks to where we live, the forgotten part of our county on the forgotten side of the state of Virginia, uploading a video to YouTube takes me back to the days of Napster. We have three matches from Sunday. We started uploading this one last night at about 10pm. It finished this morning a little after 7am. I think our connection to the internet involves some fishing line, a few cans and some Bisquick.

With that being said, here is the first match from Round 3 where one of our junior competitors, Noah S, faced senior, John H. Both were among our 6 players that qualified for Worlds in August. More videos are on the way… very slowly. Enjoy.

The Fincastle Gym and Dark Moon Cards & Games are thrilled to announce the launch of our YouTube channel! This has been something that Gym Leader Joel has wanted to do for quite some time, but just did not have the time and more importantly, the understanding to do. You know what it’s like trying to explain to your parent/grandparent how to use their first smart phone? Well, it probably wasn’t that bad, but it is in the same ballpark. And in no way, shape or form have we fully figured it out. For right now, we have a camera, a channel and some editing software, and we’re fine with that for now. What we’ve noticed over the last several years here is that the migration of the world to the smart phone has decreased the desire and ability of people to absorb long written articles, like the ones that we have focused on since 2012. As times change, so must we.

Our plan is for the channel to provide a mix of media for our leagues (both in Fincastle & Lexington) and to share with you many of the products available in our store (Dark Moon Cards & Games), as well as products only available at conventions we attend. Unfortunately, the launch has been more Wright Brothers than Space X… we planned to launch the site with several videos at once, not knowing that thanks to SW Virginia internet speeds, it would take 3 days to upload 6 videos. At any rate, our first wave of material includes product reviews of the Porygon Z GX box and the Hidden Fates Elite Trainer Kit and the accompanying opening of those items.

We will try and capture at least the finals of our League Cup this Sunday, October 6, and bring you that content as well. At future league meetings, we will try to pick up some games, or a featured match on days that time and attendance allow. We have no intention of becoming a deck analysis site, as one more lamb bleating on a mountain already full of sheep won’t offer you anything but more sheep breath. If we play something fun or come up with something different, we may share it on the channel.

The majority of future posts here will simply be to alert you to new content on the channel. So, please check back here as often as you like. To help us continue our long running league and business, we’d also like to ask that you “Like” as many videos you’d like (that’s like a lot of likes) and “Subscribe” to our channel. We will work to improve our content and video quality as we gain some much needed experience. We’re always open to ideas, so feel free to contact us with any suggestions. Head over to our channel when you get a chance. Until next time, see you at the Gym!

The Fincastle Gym Leaders came back home from their trip to the 2018 Pokemon World Championships in Nashville, TN. Upon returning, we immediately had to pack up for GEXCON, in D.C. on the following weekend, so we are unfortunately delayed in getting this report out. While not competing in the main event, Gym Leaders Joel, Logan and Georgia did try their hand at the Nashville Open, a regional-level tournament held on Saturday. They were also there to cheer on Ridge and Anna Radtke, as they competed in their first Video Game World Championship. Overall the weekend was a really cool. There were a multitude of things to see, including a massive Mega Construx Blastoise accompanied by its previous forms, a diorama to end all dioramas, a decked out Pokemon Center full of unique things to buy and of course, lots of Nashville themed decorations throughout the hall. The weekend full of competitions had its strikes and gutters, ups and downs for The Gym. As the Dude once said, you know, sometimes you eat the bar, and, sometimes uh, you know…. Alas, The Gym abides. Continue reading →

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Posted onAugust 21, 2018|Comments Off on Fincastle’s Own “Generals” Ready For World Championships

The Fincastle Pokemon Gym is proud to announce that two of its own are on their way to the 2018 Pokemon World Championships in Nashville, TN, this coming weekend, August 24th – 26th. Siblings Ridge and Anna Radtke have both qualified for the video game event in their respective age divisions. They are the charter members of The Gym’s team, Hee-Haw’s Generals, and are the first active members of The Gym to earn invitations to the event under the tutelage of its founders, Joel & Marthe Honts and their children, Logan and Georgia. Logan and Georgia have earned a combined 6 invitations to past World Championships, stretching back to 2011. In 2016, Georgia became the 1st from Fincastle to earn an invite to the video game event. Georgia, who qualified for both the trading card game and video game championships in 2016, was forced to choose between the two, ultimately picking the card competition. This year marks the first time local players will compete in the video game event. Continue reading →

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The Pokemon Company and Play!Pokemon announced its 2018 TCG rotation… back in May. Why? “Why” is an often asked and rarely answered question for a lot actions taken by the corporation. Our speculation as to this “why” is similar to the scenario of the “Top Cut” website (remember the original online site with “Pooka”, where all net-deckers went to get their lists). The Top Cut was taking too much internet traffic away from Pokemon.com. So, Pokemon hired Pooka (the site’s creator) to write and commentate for them, thus improving their service and eliminating a competitor. Of course, dozens of other sites popped up in his absence and the entire community had to embrace net-decking just to keep up, thus turning to many other internet sources. Mission not accomplished. Our annual rotation article is our site’s biggest draw, and the subject in general draws lots of traffic to various YouTube channels and other sites. So, Pokemon’s response is… just throw it out there in May. Solid plan. The discussion of “why’s” is not why we’re here today, so let’s move on to the reason we are here, the rotation. Continue reading →

The Fincastle Pokemon Gym is proud to host its 2nd Regional Championship Event in Roanoke over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. As we did last year, we are striving to incorporate special events as part of that weekend that you cannot experience anywhere but here in the heart of Virginia. We tried a little bit of everything last year, from Pokemon GO tours, to photo booths, to the 1st attempt on US soil at a Japanese-style Battle Fiesta. This year, the organizing team of the Fincastle Gym (Joel and Marthe) and Pam & Dave Tuskey have refined the weekend to focus on what worked best last year. Gym Leader Joel will be detailing the plans for the weekend over the next two weeks, and hopefully slipping in an article or two on the Expanded Format in between, so check back here often to see our latest posts. You can also follow our links to the main Blue Ridge Regional site and Facebook pages (Gym’s and Regionals) for registration info and additional details. On to the 1st event in this series, the Pokemon Cosplay contest. Continue reading →

The challenges facing the “powers that be” at Pokemon vary from season to season. When it comes to deciding the format and rules for each year’s VGC season, those decisions are very consequential, as once they are released, that’s what you get for the entire year. There are no major shifts in the format like there are in the TCG as various sets are released throughout the year. Sometimes the VGC format is pretty wide open and sometimes it becomes painfully narrow. Two seasons ago, the addition of the “Primals” (Groudon and Kyogre) was devastating to the format, as it narrowed it so much that almost all of the top 32 teams at the Virginia Regional Championship were identical. Inversely, the 2017 season was much more open, seeing a much wider variety of teams take the top spots at events throughout the year. 2018 is here and so is the new Ultra Sun & Moon format. Each new season usually brings a surge of new players with it with the hopes that the season will provide a fun, different and creative environment for the players. While we can’t see the future, we like the 2018 format and its possibilities. Continue reading →

Play!Pokemon has announced its 2017 edition of the TCG’s annual rotation. As expected the oldest 3 sets from the X&Y series, Primal Clash, Roaring Skies and Ancient Origins are leaving the Standard Format officially on September 1, 2017. This means that all cards printed in XY BREAKthrough and newer sets will remain legal for the Standard Format. The promo card pool will be cut to include XY promo #67 and higher and all Sun & Moon promos. This also means that promo set dubbed, Generations, remains in format, as it was officially released on February 2016. The Fincastle Gym, now in its 7th year of existence (9 years of playing the TCG) has developed what we hope is an easy-to-follow guide to walk both new and seasoned players through the annual rotation. We have posted articles each of the last 5 years and like the layout that we’ve come to over the last 2 years. We’ll stick to that design again this year, so if you have navigated our past posts, this year’s article should be familiar to you. Continue reading →